


The Streets Are Filled with Piranhas

by twothousandverses



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Humour, Paparazzi AU, Snark, Swearing, dave is a huge dork, i had to learn how to spell the word paparazzi to write this, references of murder, romcom, so much snark holy jesus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-05
Updated: 2015-11-05
Packaged: 2018-04-30 05:41:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5152406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twothousandverses/pseuds/twothousandverses
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dave seemed just as displeased to see her. </p><p>“Fancy meeting you here. Enjoy walking into dangerous alleyways, miss?” he drawled. “You know, in this city, mindless fair damsels like yourself are usually the ones who appear in newspapers below the headliner ‘Dumbass Murdered in Alleyway’.”</p><p>She felt like rolling her eyes, but knew the action would be lost under her sunglasses. “Wow, fuck you too!” she said. “Very imaginative guess; props for the unnecessary effort used to say, ‘Look at me, I’m a jackass’!” She crossed her arms, and gave him an unimpressed once-over. “Besides, you don’t look like the type.”</p><p>“What, the type you’d date?”</p><p> <br/>You're the paparazzi, and I'm a famous scientist AU. Or, a story about meeting the love of your life in the alleyway behind your hotel.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Streets Are Filled with Piranhas

**Author's Note:**

  * For [witch_of_fics](https://archiveofourown.org/users/witch_of_fics/gifts).



Jade Harley was starting to change her opinion about LA.

That’s not to say the city wasn’t nice. It was well-kept, bright, and full of tourists! Plus, most of the people were polite. The city was definitely better than Texas, where some white boys on the sidewalk rudely yelled at her to ‘go back to Mexico’. (She was Indian.)

So Jade had arrived expecting similar treatment, but was pleasantly surprised to find that the west was far more civilized than the south. Jade decided she liked LA.

For the most part.

Okay, backing up a little bit: she’d flown in from a scientific expedition in South America, where she was conducting research for her PhD thesis, to a political convention being held in the city. (Well, she said ‘convention’—it was more like a reunion for overly-enthusiastic lawyers.)

They’d asked her to act as president for one of the main events, a debate regarding climate change. Jade had been honoured they’d even consider her, and wholeheartedly agreed to participate. Rainforests would just have to wait!

The convention organizers had put her in a hotel a few miles away from the coast. The opening ceremony was the next day, but Jade arrived two days earlier for a self-indulgent vacation. She hadn’t rested in weeks, not since her expedition began. This was the first time she was escaping the Amazonian humidity in _months,_ and although California wasn’t much cooler than Brazil, at least they had _beaches!_

The first day after her arrival she visited Hollywood, mainly for the experience, since she had no idea who most of the actors and directors were. That was, unless they owned the heart of her cousin John—he was a huge movie nut, and made her watch _tons_ of films.

Besides, who says they went to LA and _didn’t_ visit Hollywood?

Jade spent the next day (that is to say, today) at the beach. She swam for a while, (and got water up her nose); created a kingdom made entirely out of sand with a few kids, (it had a palace, a surrounding village, outer walls, and sewer system); and sunbathed for an hour, just to soak in the sun. (Lots of sunscreen had been involved—Jade did _not_ need more of a tan. Brazil already gave her enough bronzing for a lifetime.)

But the sun had started to set, so Jade reluctantly called one of the hotel chauffeurs to pick her up. ‘Reluctantly’ because she was having fun and didn’t want to leave, but also because she didn’t want to return to the hotel’s mass gathering of paparazzi.

 _That_ was the reason she was beginning to dislike LA.

If she was the protagonist of a cartoon, she’d grit her teeth and mutter distastefully, _“The paparazzi.”_

Jade hated them, for many reasons, but mainly because their mere existence was unnerving. Whenever they were around she could almost _feel_ their presence.

She felt like she was desperately clinging to a vine dangling above water, piranhas below hungrily anticipating her fall. As soon as she let go, or stepped outdoors, they’d attack, snapping photos and asking questions, and hoping she was important enough to make money off of.

And they were _vicious._ Although she wasn’t the main center of attention—science didn’t gather many fans that cared about gossip—she had had her experiences, and none of them were pleasant.

The reason all those piranhas were outside the hotel was because of Feferi Peixes, the European princess of an obscure country no one could pronounce. She’d also flown in for the convention, but that was because she was hosting the opening and closing ceremonies. The organizers had put them in the same hotel, leaving Jade stuck with the press on her front lawn for an entire week.

It was pretty obvious why the meeting organizers had asked the princess to attend—Feferi held a lot of political control over Europe and a lot of social control over anyone with a Twitter account. The latest news regarded her ‘absolutely scandalous’ love life; Jade hadn’t heard much of it, but apparently a few weeks ago the princess had dumped the rich aristocrat Eridan Ampora to date her bodyguard Sollux Captor—and the fangirls were _furious_. They needed updates _now._ So the paparazzi were all over that shit.

The good news was that they hardly focused on her. Jade preferred it that way, because extra recognition wasn’t worth the plummet in privacy. She wouldn’t be able to handle being in Feferi’s place, that kind of pressure was nerve-racking!

Besides, most of the recent things said about Peixes weren’t kind. After the whole Eridan-Feferi-Sollux debacle the public essentially lost their shit; the young people flew into an outrage, cursing the breakup of their OTP, and the older people ridiculed the teenagers for being ‘immature’.

And the press just took the incident and made it bigger, using the documenting-people’s-lives-is-how-I-feed-my-family excuse. Couldn’t they find a more worthwhile job?

Jade was a firm believer that everyone was a genius in _something._ These people _definitely_ could do something more useful than ruin the lives of others.

The cab turned onto the hotel’s street, and she got a glimpse of the horde crowded by the main entrance. Jade sighed and readjusted the sunglasses over her eyes resignedly. She’d been wearing the bigass pair of shades since she arrived, to prevent people from recognizing her—but she hardly found it necessary. Although she was likely to appear in National Geographic as a ‘Powerful Female Scientist’, people on the streets weren’t _throwing_ themselves at her. Science devotees were more subtle than that. If she hadn’t needed the glasses to see, Jade wouldn’t have bothered wearing them.

She rapped the back of the seat in front of her.

“Driver? Can you drop me off around the back?” she requested. Getting past the horde in front of the hotel otherwise would be a nightmare. She remembered the piranhas and shivered.

The chauffeur (bless him) understood, and took the next turn left. They went down a couple side streets before arriving at the hotel from the rear. There weren’t any bellhops, but Jade didn’t care. She was perfectly capable of getting out of a car _without_ someone to open the door for her!

“Right here,” she instructed, a block away. By parking right in front of the building she could attract unwanted attention—or at least that was the reason she told herself. The truth was that Jade didn’t want hotel staff seeing her break into their building. (But that was their fault for leaving the back door unlocked! Seriously!)

The cab pulled up by the pavement, and Jade thanked the chauffeur before hoping out. She waited until the car had driven out of sight before beginning to walk. Although it was far from dusk, the sun was shining a dim gold rather than an afternoon’s white. Tourists were starting to head in for the day, and Jade passed by several returning to their own hotels.

The wind from the coastline streamed past; Jade took a deep breath and let the breeze fill her lungs. Not very clean air, but refreshing nonetheless. It was also chilly, a nice change from the day’s unforgiving heat.

She arrived to the rear of the hotel. There was a back entrance (only for hotel personnel, but whatever) at the end of an alleyway, which meant she had to sneak down said alley to get inside.

Usually she’d hesitate before doing this, but fortunately the hotel was too well maintained to let junkies come close so their business. Because of this, Jade felt reassured she’d run into no drug dealers. And she hadn’t yesterday either, when she’d come by here after visiting Hollywood.

So Jade slipped into the alleyway, pretty confident of her safety. At worse there would be some housekeepers lounging by the door on their break, but that was unlikely since the hotel had an employee room.

Thus, it came as a great surprise to her when she turned the corner and found some guy leaning against the alley wall, rifling through some photos on his camera. He must have been her age, or a little younger. His head was cast downwards to look at the camera, so his (bleached? No way was his hair that naturally blond) hair fell in front of his face. From the way he was standing Jade could tell there was some sort of graphic design on his shirt, but she couldn’t see what.

He was wearing sunglasses too, a large pair of aviators that obscured his eyes. (Jade could have snorted at that. What sort of dork would wear sunglasses when it wasn’t even bright outside? And, okay, she was wearing her own sunglasses, but she had a valid reason to!)

“ _Fuck_ ,” she hissed on reflex, and the guy looked up. Now that he wasn’t slouching Jade got a glimpse of what was on the front of his shirt—a pair of crudely-drawn characters she vaguely recognized from a completely awful movie that came out a few years ago. What had it been called? _Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff?_

John made her watch it with him when it first came out. Even he, who adored the most terrible of Nick Cage movies, admitted that SBAHJ was bullshit _._

(Despite this, the critics called it ‘ironic’ and gave the film four stars out of ten. The fact that anyone would _willingly_ wear a shirt with the two main characters on it made Jade’s face scrunch up in something resembling disgust.)

The guy appeared just as displeased to see her. “Fancy meeting you here. Enjoy walking into dangerous alleyways, miss?” he drawled. His voice had an underlying southern accent Jade felt he was emphasising on purpose. “You know, in this city, mindless fair damsels like yourself are usually the ones who appear in newspapers below the headliner ‘Dumbass Brutally Murdered in Alleyway’.”

It’d be a lie to say his response took her by surprise. Unfortunately, Jade had a lot of experience putting up with discourteous strangers. (As was the nature of her job at times. Some people hadn’t accepted that women scientists are a thing now! Hello, the eighteenth century’s calling, and it wants its prejudice back!)

Fortunately, Jade was completely fine with arguing, _especially_ if it was to bring down a jerk. The fact that she was curious as to why this stranger was there helped.

She retorted dryly, “Wow, what a smartass. A real charmer; the noblest guy I’ve met since Guatemala.” She flicked her head to toss hair out of her face. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“I asked you first.” He flicked his Canon camera off. “Meeting a boyfriend?” he guessed. “Well, if you had to pick an alleyway of all the ones in LA for hot outside sex, this one was probably your best choice. I’ve been here for two hours already, so I’m basically an expert on the place.”

Jade gave him an unimpressed glare. The guy amended, “Okay, sorry. That was pretty impolite. Meeting your girlfriend?”

She felt like rolling her eyes, but she knew the action would be lost under her sunglasses. “Wow, fuck you too!” she said. “Very imaginative guess; props for the unnecessary effort used to say, ‘Look at me, I’m a jackass’!” She crossed her arms, and gave him an unimpressed once-over. “Besides, you don’t look like the type.”

“What, the type you’d date?”

Jade scoffed. “I meant the type who’d murder someone,” she corrected. And it was true, the guy looked harmless—all bark no bite. He might excel in verbally ticking people off, but that seemed like something he did for his own amusement rather than to provoke anyone.

Besides, Jade could definitely overpower him if he _did_ decide to attack her. Working in a rainforest for the past many months had given her abs of steel. Any perverted murderer or rapist would have a tough time getting an advantage over her!

Despite this, she had to begrudgingly admit he wasn’t necessarily… _not-muscular?_ Jade internally scratch her head. He was built for speed not strength, unlike herself, but that didn’t mean he was a twig who’d snap easily. Hmm.

She glanced at him again, just briefly. He didn’t seemlike he’d need to resort to mugging either way. The mere fact that he owned a Canon meant he wasn’t desperate for cash. He wouldn’t shank her for the few hundred dollars in her wallet.

Determining she was safe, and totally not realizing she’d just checked him out, Jade continued with her mocking.

“You look like someone who’d shriek at the mere sight of a knife,” she added pointedly. “I doubt you’d be able to even hold one properly. You’d slice your hand off.”

The guy acted offended.

“My, my. You’ve hurt me,Princess,” he said. Though his tone was affronted Jade could tell it wasn’t genuine. “You really know how to get to a man’s heart.” He cocked his head, a thought occurring to him.

“But for all you know, that’s my cover. People point at me and stage-whisper like rude motherfuckers, ‘Wow, look at that weak-ass punk, I bet he can’t even hold a knife straight.’ And I’ll say, ‘Cool it, guys, you don’t want to fight me; I’m practically a sword-ninja master.’ But they don’t believe me, so I’m forced to defend the Strider name, and sneak into their homes and slit their throats while they partake in an innocent dinner with their families. Wives are screaming shrilly; the children can only gape in horror. Poor kids, they’re all teary-eyed, pitiful half-orphans now. They’ll grow up and write books about it.”

Jade raised an unimpressed eyebrow, but his word-vomit hadn’t finished. The guy—Strider?—leaned against the wall, completely lost. “And in the morning the cops’ll show up bewildered as fuck. They determine there are no leads. They call it a day and eat a bagel. It’s on the news; congressmen bang gavels at each other uselessly, as if anything they do isn’t useless; and Obama makes a titswicked speech that moves the whole nation. They investigate for months, but they never find out the killer was innocuous me all along. I’m a motherfucking shadow; James Bond.”

Jade heaved an exaggerated sigh. “Are you finished? That’s an entire minute of my life I’ll never get back.”

Instead of defending himself, Strider pointed out again, “You never answered my question.”

Jade sneered. “What, the one where you demanded to know what I’m doing here? Like hell I’ll tell you, dickwad.” She rolled her eyes, and after doing so her gaze fell back to his shirt. “But if you’d be courteous, I’m willing to listen to your answer for the same question… Jeff.”

Strider didn’t say anything for a moment, clearly at a loss for what she’d just called him. But the moment passed, and he flinched as if honestly offended. This time shit got defensive; though he acted nonchalant about it.

“Yo, Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff is fuckin’ _fantastic._ It’s the most ironic shit Hollywood’s ever produced. I wouldn’t expect typicals like you to understand,” he rambled. “This shirt is a fucking gift to own, and a blessing to wear. Angels weep at the sight, while Jesus nods in approval saying, ‘Yep, that’s one cool motherfucker.’”

“Oh, so you’re wearing that garbage _ironically,”_ Jade said disdainfully. Oh my god, this guy was a dork. If he wasn’t such an ass, she would find him endearing. Unfortunately, that was so far from the case. “Sorry, I take everything I said back. You’re a fantastic, unique human being. I’m so impressed by your _irony_.”

Strider shrugged offhandedly. “Hey, it’s what I do. Gotta work for that ‘I’m not like other guys’ shit. Ladies swoon with all this fragrant originality seeping from my pores.”

“Gross.” Jade wrinkled her nose. “If by ‘swoon’ you mean ‘faint in disgust’, sure.” A breeze from the coastline found its way into the alley and nudged hair into her face. She brushed it aside with a light sweep of her hand. “Glad to know I could count on you for being _somewhat_ intelligent.”

“Can I say the same for you, princess? Not a very wise decision to wander into a deserted alleyway where anyone could be waiting for you: a murderer, a SBAHJ fan.”

Jade knew it was bitchy to show off, and Strider wouldn’t believe her boasts anyway. So instead of saying she was getting a PhD in Environmental Studies, and was heiress to her grandfather’s renowned research company, she said, “Right, take the girl away from a workroom, and by she reverts to her natural form—a ditz. Listen, just because I’m not wearing a lab coat right now doesn’t mean my intelligence plummets.”

He furrowed his eyebrows. Jade expected him to mock her back, or call bullshit, but he surprised her with the curiosity in his reply. “Wait, you’re a scientist? Does that mean you’re here for the convention?”

“Uh, yeah!” She widened her eyes sardonically, though once again he couldn’t see the expression. Dammit. “This is my hotel, dumbass.”

He looked around, though nothing had changed about their surroundings. He said slowly, like trying to make sure she’d understand, “Then why are you _here.”_

 _Excellent question._ Jade could see the door at the end of the alleyway.

She said, “Supposedly avoiding loutish chumps like you, but I guess I got unlucky.”

“…By ‘loutish chumps’, you mean the troupe of paparazzi around the front?”

“Yes, _of course_ I mean the paparazzi. Who else, the queen of England?”

The guy snickered and leaned against the wall. He took the strap attached to his camera and looped it around his neck. He gave her a pointed look, as if waiting for her to connect the hints.

She groaned exaggeratedly. “You’re kidding me,” she said. “You’re one of those….”

She couldn’t find a word that wasn’t ‘piranha’ to finish that sentence, so instead she snapped sharply, “At least it explains a lot.”

Strider gave a (not so) thoughtful hum. “How so?”

Jade ticked off a list on her fingers, using her middle one first. “One, how you don’t care about invading the privacy of others,” she said. “Two, why you’re such a dick. Three, the camera.”

She glanced pointedly at the Canon he held in his hands, and he nodded in conceding agreement.

“Well, sorry to disappoint, Princess.” His expression changed, but with those giant aviators blocking half his face Jade wasn’t sure how. “It’s what I do, taking pictures of famous individuals and peddling them, like….” The metaphor died on his tongue. He didn’t seem awfully invested in it. “Yeah, that’s what I do.”

Jade interrogated, “So then why aren’t you with the rest of your posse out by the front of the hotel?”

Strider shrugged casually. “Trying to see if I can get mugged on purpose,” he answered dryly. “I’ve never been jumped before, and I’d like to know what it’s like before moving on to live with the angels.”

“Of course,” Jade deadpanned.

He glanced away, staring at the wall directly in front of him. He surprised her by admitting, “I got bored. Also, I hate my coworkers—all this not helped by the fact that I would rather be anywhere else than here.”

Fuck. There was no way she could say something cruel in response to that. Her anger deflated like a child jumping on an inflatable bed and popping the damn thing before using it once.

She awkwardly scratched her elbow. “Oh. Uh, that… sort of sucks?” she offered. Because it didn’t sound sympathetic enough, she added, “Um. Why… are you working for the press, then?”

“Why’s it any of your business?” he responded.

She huffed. “I’m just curious, jeez!” She rocked forward on her feet, inching a little closer. “So are you going to tell me?”

Strider sighed, conceding defeat. “The sad truth is that not a lot of magazines are willing to hire some hipster kid fresh out of art school. There are tons of guys with loads more experience applying for the same positions, and… they get to choose.” He gave a half-hearted shrug, and sounded bitter when he next spoke. “So I got stuck doing freelance bullshit. It’s not bad, I guess.

“Anyway, hopefully this is just for now,” he finished. “To gain experience and move on to something I _actually_ enjoy doing, y’know? I don’t plan to be stuck like this for the rest of my life.”

Jade was mildly surprised. She would’ve never guessed any of that, though it made sense. Now that she thought about it, Strider didn’t fit _that_ neatly into her mould of ‘paparazzi predator’. Like she said before, he was all bark, no bite. If he wasn’t a human being, then he wouldn’t have admitted this worry to her. Hell, they probably wouldn’t have had this conversation _at all._

Jade also felt bad for him. She never had to work hard to get where she was—her wealthy grandfather had paid for her university in full, and later got her a job working for his company without even an interview. She had never known what it was like to work for something and fall short for reasons beyond her control.

Plus, she could definitely empathise with his hatred of paparazzi.

Jade nibbled on her bottom lip. Strider glanced back at his camera, but didn’t turn it on. She was troubled by those huge aviators, which blocked half his face and fended her from knowing what he was feeling. Was he dejected? Feigning dejection? Did he really not care at all?

Jade was still curious. By all rights she, a stranger, should not have been more interested in Strider’s life than himself, but that didn’t stop her from asking, “What… would you have liked to photograph instead?”

Strider seemed surprised she’d ask, but considered her question genuinely. “I always liked urban best,” he decided. “Though landscape is pretty cool too.”

Jade gave a grim smile. “Not exactly ‘showbiz’, huh.”

He chucked softly. “I guess not.”

The silence only lasted as long as it was comfortable. A second breeze flitted through the narrow space.

Strider gestured towards her with a flick of his head. “And what about you, Miss Scientist? What did you study?” He guessed, “Anthropology? Medicine? If you’re a palaeontologist that’d be a freaky coincidence, ‘cause that’s what I minored in.”

“Hah, no.” Jade remembered her grandfather, and how he’d gained his reputation as a famous palaeontologist. “I still think it is super cool though, even if my grandpa is into it more than I am.

“Anyway, I graduated in Environmental Studies and biology,” she answered. “Specialized in tropical biomes—though I sort of I wish I had focused on chemistry since the start. Not that I hatemy work now, but, y’know….” She trailed off, wondering how she could finish that sentence. “But I would’ve liked to work with, like, carbon emissions and all that stuff. To ‘save the planet’ and whatever.”

Strider’s eyebrows furrowed, thinking of something. Jade wondered what, but he didn’t say. “Though I bet you wouldn’t be coming to this convention if your current work wasn’t majorly important.”

Jade glanced up. “Ha… I guess so. Thanks.” He said it offhandedly, but Jade was touched. She rubbed the inside of her wrist. “That means a lot—and you don’t even know what I’m working on!”

Strider shifted his feet forward a bit, making himself more comfortable against the wall. “There’s an easy way to remedy that,” he said. “Tell me about it.”

So she did. She told him about her investigation in Brazil, and how her grandfather gladly funded it despite unable to go on the journey himself. Jade told him how sometimes it got frustrating since her small crew didn’t get work done quickly, and tiring because it was _her_ thesis and thus _she_ had to do most of the work—but it was always fun because they were such a closely-knit group. She detailed what plants they studied so far, and what she wished to encounter later on.

Strider was an unexpectedly good listener. He stayed focused to her story, his head cocked in interest. There was no way to tell if he understood everything she talked about, but he interrupted her blather occasionally with questions or words of attentiveness, like ‘uh huh’, or ‘really?’, or ‘go on’.

But what was weird was how his eyebrows were furrowed the entire time, like he was trying to remember something but couldn’t, so it remained an irritating scratch he couldn’t relieve. He’d been wearing that expression ever since Jade mentioned her degree, and she couldn’t for the life of her figure out what he was confused over. She resolved to ask, as soon as she finished explaining.

“So in the end, it _wasn’t_ Aradia’s fault for leaving the sweet-smelling chemical equipment out in the open, attracting the swarm angry pelicans,” Jade ended.

He nodded. “That’s so fucked up,” Strider determined.

She was just about to ask what she’d intended to, but she hesitated. She studied Strider’s face for a second, trying to figure out what had made her pause.

He’d just said some innocent comment out the messed up nature of her travels. And—

Oh piss, she just realized; ‘Strider’ might not even be his _name!_

Tactless as always, she blurted, “What’re you called?”

His eyebrows shot up. Jade’s brain caught up to her words, and she fumbled for words, backpedalling furiously. “Oh, man! That sounded really bad! I’m sorry.” She scrabbled for an excuse, while her companion stood there sort of amused, mostly confused. “I mean,” she explained, “we’ve been talking and snarking at each other for a while, and I just realized I… don’t… really know your name?” She grimaced.

“You just realized,” he repeated, though he was grinning slightly.

Jade brushed hair out of her face embarrassedly. “Ha. Well… I guess?” She smiled shyly. “Jeez, stop looking at me like that!”

“How do you know how I’m looking at you? These kickass shades keep my true emotions a secret.”

Jade laughed. It was weird to imagine an hour ago they’d been arguing about pointlessness. It was hard to imagine they’d _met_ an hour ago. “ _Still_ doesn’t mean you’re not an open book,” she teased.

He grinned, and extended a hand. The other remained holding his camera, so it didn’t dangle uncomfortably around his neck. “Dave Strider,” he said.

So his name _was_ Strider! Now that Jade thought about it, it made more sense it was a surname than a given name. (Who names their child _Strider?_ Seriously Jade, your reasoning skills need improvement.)

She reached out and shook his hand. By the slackness of his grip he clearly hadn’t been expecting for hers to be so strong. “Jade Harley,” she said, smirking internally.

There were a few seconds where Dave’s features remained exactly the same: interested, but not excitedly so.

Everything changed when something hit him in realization. His jaw went slack, and he took a step backwards as if to steady himself. Suddenly his grip on her hand became excessively tight; he looked like he was about to break his Canon with the way he was clenching his fists.

“I—what? Shit, that’s—I....” His mouth made flapping motions as he babbled incoherencies. Jade was intrigued, but her first priority was saving her hand from being crushed.

She pulled away forcibly, and that seemed to snap Dave out of it.In a long gasp he breathed, _“Mother of fuck.”_

“Heard of me?” Jade rubbed her hand, but not because it hurt. She studied it as if it was suddenly interesting. She added, “Took you long enough. This entire time you’ve looked on the verge of remembering something—”

He stopped her with a forced, _“You’re_ Jade Harley?”

She froze. He sounded like a _tiny fragile child holy shit._

Jade swallowed down a snicker. “Uh, yep!” she confirmed brightly. She wondered if it would be derisive to curtsey. “At your service.”

It stopped being funny when he dropped his gaze and his tone became genuinely upset. “I’m so sorry for being a snarky douchebag earlier,” he apologized hastily. “I didn’t recognize you—I mean, I shouldn’t have been rude anyway, but—”

He groaned miserably, bringing both hands up to cover his face. The camera swung from his neck as he stepped away from Jade. “I’m such a dumbass, fuck!”

Jade was rather confused, and more than a bit troubled. “…Are you alright?”

“No,” he declared bluntly. His words were muffled by his hands. “I’ll never be okay again. Put it on my tombstone: Dave Strider, whose middle name as of this day is Not Okay; a young man who since then was Never Okay Again, and haunted by regret for the rest of his life.”

He dropped his arms but still wouldn’t face Jade. She noticed he had blanched considerably. “I _love_ your grandfather’s work,” he explained. “He’s basically my idol. You remember how I said palaeontology was my minor?”

He didn’t give her the chance to reply. “Well, Harley is the _reason_ I took an interest in that shit in the first place! His work during the seventies was _amazing—_ he led almost _all_ the excavations of indigenous cities in northern South America, and practically owns them all! He deciphered the entirety of the Tairona’s language with limited writing tablets and references in _less than five months!_ Then he established a multinational _company,_ and wrote, like, six books! Harley’s just—” Jade couldn’t help but notice the stammer that entered his voice “I mean, your _grandfather_ is _…_ is a hero to me.”

He frantically raked his fingers through his hair. “And I can’t believe I acted so _rude_ to his granddaughter! I can’t believe I’m actually _speaking_ with his _granddaughter!”_

Jade shifted concernedly. Dave didn’t sound just passionate, he sounded _sick_. He hadn’t unclenched his hands, and she was certain that if he didn’t relax his nails would draw blood.

So she reached out and placed a hand on his shoulder. She adjusted her sunglasses so they sat on the top of her head—sure, without her prescription she was a helplessly short-sighted, but that problem wasn’t applicable here. Also, she needed to meet his eyes, and she couldn’t do that if they were _both_ wearing ridiculously large eyewear.

“Hey, chill, Dave!” she said. He fidgeted like he wanted to pull away and start pacing.

She tightened her grip, holding him in place. “Listen to me! Calm your tits!” He opened his mouth to protest, but she silenced him with a loud, “Chill the fuck out!

“I don’t blame you for _anything!_ You were acting like a pretty big dick, but so was I. Our mutual douchebaggery cancelled each other out, so we owe each other _jack.”_ She softened her tone, and offered a genuine smile. “And I already know you’re a cool guy, so it’s not like ‘raging asshat’ is my only impression of you. Seriously, there’s no need to apologize.”

Dave snorted offhandedly, but his clenched fists were still shaking. “Reassuring.”

Jade squeezed his shoulder. “Oh, come off it! Besides, I think it’s cool to have, like, a fan. You don’t run into many of those in the science industry.”

After a moment’s hesitation, he advised, “…You just need to make your sector more targetable towards teenagers.” His voice became less strained. “I recommend releasing an album, preferably featuring a popular boy band. Or anyone hot who can sing adequately.”

Jade laughed. Dave relaxed under her hold. She decided that he didn’t look like fainting anymore, and stepped back.

“I’m sure that’s manageable,” she agreed. “In fact, I could shuffle my phone’s music playlist right now and call up the first artist who appears. We could get a business proposal running immediately.”

“Get them to sing the periodic table, opera-style,” Dave suggested.

“What about a list of every bone in the human body,” Jade proposed, “to _Mary Had a Little Lamb_?”

“The theory of relativity?”

“The properties of a graph.”

“All the digits of pi.”

Jade accused, “I’m not sure that’s science-y enough.” She crossed her arms and grinned. “We need to be careful about this shit—the last thing we need is to rile up the Math Corp for stealing their territory.”

“Nah. The worse the math geeks will do is tell us to multiply ourselves by zero,” Dave retorted without missing a beat. “The people we _really_ need to be on the lookout for are the politic nerds. They won’t hesitate to get legal on our asses.”

Jade nodded solemnly. Her smile turned serious. “Of course. How could I have forgotten the true enemy? Those damn politicians are everywhere, slobbering all over the stock market and ruining Christmas.”

Both lasted only three seconds before bursting into fits of laughter.

**Author's Note:**

> Then they talked for like three more hours until it got dark and neither of them wanted to be hanging out in an empty alleyway. They exchanged phone numbers and promised to keep in contact, before heading their own ways. (Dave waited until he was in his shitty hotel room to freak out about scoring Jacob Harley’s granddaughter’s phone number holy shit holy shit holy shit.)
> 
> Two days later they agreed to meet up a last time, before Jade had to leave for Brazil. Dave brought a bunch of his landcape photos to show Jade, and as soon as she saw them she hired him on the spot (they were that damn amazing, and if these were the ‘okay’ photos she wanted to see the ‘good’ ones). So Dave quit his day job and currently works as an official photographer for Skaia Laboratories, Grandpa Harley’s company. 
> 
> They started dating three months later. Then they probably got married some time after that. (The synopsis for this story is how Dave began telling his kids ‘how I met your mother’.)
> 
> ~~
> 
> Fun fact of the day: ‘Multiplícate por cero’ (‘go multiply yourself by zero’) is an actual idiom we use where I live. Another common one is ‘pinta un bosque y piérdase’, which translates to ‘paint yourself a forest and go get lost in it’. :D 
> 
> Anyway, hope you enjoyed the fic!


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